Since his return to managing the company in 1997, Steve Jobs has proven to be a wizard of re-invention on the technological market. With the introduction of the iPhone, he has done it again.

There are very few companies in the world that have the same leadership ability that Apple enjoys. And there are very few people leading those companies who can accurately be called “visionaries”, as is the case with Steve Jobs, CEO and founding member of the Apple company. Last January 9th, the charismatic director once again confirmed his ability to redefine the market with the introduction of the iPhone, Apple’s first mobile telephone, which has shaken up a business segment where it seemed that almost everything had been invented.

At its introduction, the iPhone won the admiration of experts for its ability to integrate, in one single device, the most popular technologies: mobile telephone, MP3 music, digital photography, and Internet. The simplicity and elegance of a touch-screen device controlled entirely by the fingers exceeded the expectations of consumers, who had been waiting for a move in this direction for quite some time. The biggest surprise was the welcome that the stock market gave it, when it re-valued the company’s stock price by more than 8% in one single day.

The work Steve Jobs has done in the last ten years has been key not only to avoiding bankruptcy for Apple, but also to revitalizing the market and opening up new business opportunities. The success achieved by the company has been largely due to its ability to reinvent the IT and consumer electronics sectors, bringing them closer to the less expert public and earning their trust by means of solid and effective technology, and a design that has broken the mould.

From iMac to iPhone

The path Jobs took started in 1998 with the first iMac, a compact and fun computer that established the new image for the Apple brand. Its surprising aesthetic, copied time and again, was equally as successful when applied to the iBook laptops. However, in 2001, Apple diversified its business by entering the niche market of portable digital music players. With the iPod, the company introduced a friendly, easy-to-use product, proving that technology can also be “cool”, and an object of desire.

In the last five years, Apple has evolved its iPod, creating different versions adapted to each type of user, but always guided by the same functional philosophy and aesthetic. The more than 60 million players sold worldwide attest to its accuracy. Its iTunes technology for managing music data has become the portal to the largest online music store, as well as the interface from which the computer synchronizes with the iPhone, the new telephone from Apple.

With its triumphs and its shortcomings, the iPhone is now the leading exponent of a company that has known how to detect new markets in which the competition has still not developed. Apple, always attentive to its customers, doesn’t follow market trends in order to perfect them anymore. Now they create them.

Technical data:

Company: Apple.
Objectives: Maintain worldwide market leadership in the consumer technology market.
Solution: Redefine and discover new markets by means of developing new products with a unique trademark, such as the new iPhone.
Result: Become the leading reference point in creativity and sales in its sector, setting the path to follow for all of its competition.

Apple in figures

•  Since its launch in 2001, more than 60 million iPod’s have been sold.
•  More than 2 billion songs downloaded from iTunes.
•  Sales have increased by 11 billion dollars in the last two years.
•  In the final third of 2006 alone, Apple sold 1.6 million computers and more than 21 million iPod’s.